I'm so peeved!
Jan. 9th, 2020 09:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dimity_blueThere's an Isaac Asimov story called The Ugly Little Boy in which a Neanderthal child is snatched through time and kept in a stasis bubble for a few years as an experiment.
He's looked after by Miss Fellowes, a nurse, who grows to love Timmie (as she names him).
Timmie's a prisoner in the stasis bubble as it would expend far too much energy to let him cross into this timeline fully.
Spoilers here.
In the end, the company decides to end the Timmie experiment as they've now refined the process and can grab a 14th century peasant.
So the now 7 year old Timmie is to be tossed back to Neanderthal times. Miss Fellowes is devastated at the thought of losing Timmie and horrified at the thought of this helpless child being dumped back where he was taken from with no guarantees his nomadic tribe will even be in the area.
Miss Fellowes tries to remove Timmie from stasis but is caught. She's told the stasis bubble will be punctured that night and Timmie sent back, and she begs to be allowed a few minutes to say goodbye. Once back in the stasis bubble, she punctures it herself and she and Timmie are sent back together.
THE END! Dun dun dun!
I really enjoy the story despite never knowing what happens to Miss Fellowes and Timmie.
Then I discovered that Robert Silverberg wrote a novel about the short story and what happened afterwards to Miss Fellowes and Timmie. I found an online ebook and was really excited to read it.
I finished it last night. RS rewrote and lengthened the story into novel length, interspersing the longer story scenes with scenes about Timmie's tribe and their view of his disappearance.
I much prefer the original story to the longer version. And that "what happens afterwards to Miss Fellowes and Timmie?" which was why I was reading the book? That turned out to be 2 pages long, if that. I'm so unimpressed!
He's looked after by Miss Fellowes, a nurse, who grows to love Timmie (as she names him).
Timmie's a prisoner in the stasis bubble as it would expend far too much energy to let him cross into this timeline fully.
Spoilers here.
In the end, the company decides to end the Timmie experiment as they've now refined the process and can grab a 14th century peasant.
So the now 7 year old Timmie is to be tossed back to Neanderthal times. Miss Fellowes is devastated at the thought of losing Timmie and horrified at the thought of this helpless child being dumped back where he was taken from with no guarantees his nomadic tribe will even be in the area.
Miss Fellowes tries to remove Timmie from stasis but is caught. She's told the stasis bubble will be punctured that night and Timmie sent back, and she begs to be allowed a few minutes to say goodbye. Once back in the stasis bubble, she punctures it herself and she and Timmie are sent back together.
THE END! Dun dun dun!
I really enjoy the story despite never knowing what happens to Miss Fellowes and Timmie.
Then I discovered that Robert Silverberg wrote a novel about the short story and what happened afterwards to Miss Fellowes and Timmie. I found an online ebook and was really excited to read it.
I finished it last night. RS rewrote and lengthened the story into novel length, interspersing the longer story scenes with scenes about Timmie's tribe and their view of his disappearance.
I much prefer the original story to the longer version. And that "what happens afterwards to Miss Fellowes and Timmie?" which was why I was reading the book? That turned out to be 2 pages long, if that. I'm so unimpressed!
(no subject)
Date: 2020-01-09 10:23 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-01-09 01:28 pm (UTC)Thanks.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-01-09 11:49 am (UTC)... well, that would be quite the let down. I've had similar things happen to me with books and movies.
I think there was even one where I thought I was missing something, but no, it was the end. (I honestly forget what the medium was. Apparently I was so disgusted that it's been mostly expunged from my memory, leaving behind only fragments of annoyance and bitterness. Alas.)
(no subject)
Date: 2020-01-09 01:33 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-01-09 03:00 pm (UTC)Have you ever had it happen, that you find a story you read long ago and discover that it is nowhere near as good as you recall? It has happened to me, as you see. (Interestingly, a friend quoted the famous line from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend” - i e okay, then I should write the story I know!)
(no subject)
Date: 2020-01-09 04:52 pm (UTC)I could see little you taking the basic premise and running with it, turning it into a story that'd appeal to you more.
Do you write fanfic?
Re: Fanfic
Date: 2020-01-11 04:14 am (UTC)I’ve played with a few ideas. This one, I had to stop because of Archie Comics’ famous “cease and desist” order, which shut down all the LiveJournal communities as well.
taking the basic premise and running with it, turning it into a story that'd appeal to you more
The result was called “a dark, violent, gritty story”. Think “Riverdale Meets Red Dawn by way of Blue Velvet” - it got far worse than you’ll see at that link:
Chapter III, IV
… In that moment, in that place, Elisabeth 'Betty' Cooper faced the worst, raw panicking terror she had ever
known in all her life…
Betty crouched there on the dark ground, her knuckles jammed against her teeth, watching the two Eurasians
carrying Cricket O’Dell toward the lights of the Lodge mansion. She was not aware that she was making a
strange, breathy, high-pitched keening sound. At that moment she was literally scared out of her mind…
An explosive grunt - a startled yell - a heavy thud broke in with rude force on Betty's fragmented wits.
She blinked into the light, wiped her eyes, stared…
The soldier, who had been caught off-balance by the sudden turn of events and had fallen flat on his back,
had already scrambled to his feet and started after her - but at the officer's bellowed command he stopped,
and with easy precision he unshouldered his heavy Russian battle rifle, dropped to one knee and brought it
to his shoulder.
Betty would have screamed out a warning, but the words froze in her throat. Awkwardly with her arms
pinioned behind her, Cricket was running desperately for the trees, heedless of injury to her bare feet.
Another ten seconds and she would reach the tree line -
Ch-chakk… BLAMM!
In adrenaline slow motion, Betty actually saw the bullet impact…
But the very idea of turning those characters and setting on their heads was irresistible, and is what prompted the C & D order!
Re: Fanfic
Date: 2020-01-12 07:00 pm (UTC)Your story looks interesting.
‘Interphasic polarisation!’
Date: 2020-01-11 06:40 am (UTC)Another idea I had a startlingly long time ago: As the two TV shows aired contemporaneously, I wrote (half of) a radio play wherein the Fourth Doctor and Romana travel to Earth in 1943, and meet someone also travelling on much the same errand.
WW: Speak, I command you! Who are you?
DOC: Well, I’m the Doctor, and I must say, for someone so good at camouflage you certainly have flamboyant tastes in clothing…
WW: Be silent, fool! You will answer my questions - and you will tell the truth!
ROM: (OFF-MIC) Oh, he always tells the truth - but the Devil is in the details. K-9, immobilise her!
&c., &c.
K-9: Unable to comply - subject is shielded by a kinetic absorption field.
ROM: A what?
DOC: Oh, my, now, that does take me back. Just what it says on the tin, Romana - kinetic energy is absorbed by the field. If you fired a gun at this young lady she could swat the bullet out of the air! Tho’ it would be hot - that’s probably why she wears those vambraces on her wrists…
WW: I will not be talked over, you blithering fool!
DOC: And I will not be compelled.
SOUND FX: SHORT HARP STRUM - LIGHT THUMP
… … … …
That’s one I could finish now. I might do that.
Re: ‘Interphasic polarisation!’
Date: 2020-01-12 07:06 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-01-09 12:08 pm (UTC)I much prefer the original story to the longer version
The same thing happened to his 1941 story “Nightfall.” I do not recall if it was he who expanded it - because the result was utterly forgettable.
Leave Well Enough Alone.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-01-09 01:34 pm (UTC)THEY CAN'T.
Wikipedia entry
Date: 2020-01-09 02:49 pm (UTC)It seems your subject above was not unique.
In 1988, Martin H. Greenberg suggested Asimov find someone who would take his 47-year-old
short story and – keeping the story essentially as written – add a detailed beginning and
a detailed ending to it. This resulted in the 1990 publication of the novel Nightfall by
Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg. As Asimov relates in the Robert Silverberg chapter of
his autobiography, "...Eventually, I received the extended Nightfall manuscript from Bob
[Silverberg]... Bob did a wonderful job and I could almost believe I had written the whole
thing myself. He remained absolutely faithful to the original story and I had very little
to argue with."
Okay, well, it’s his story. If he liked it, fine. I’m not interested - and so far as I know, the novel is never what people speak of when they mention “Isaac Asimov’s ‘Nightfall’.”
Re: Wikipedia entry
Date: 2020-01-09 04:43 pm (UTC)(And maybe RS needs to bugger off and write his own stuff.)
(no subject)
Date: 2020-01-11 03:12 am (UTC)I remember that story very fondly. I've occasionally played with the idea of -- assuming Ms. Fellows lived -- how she might have changed prehistory. Even introducing just cleanliness and basic agriculture would have given that tribe a boost in live members / growth of numbers. An impulse toward encouraging tribes to cooperate rather than fight (she's a nurse and able to love an "ugly little boy", so I expect she'd be anti-war) might have engendered world peace long before the pyramids were even built. Fun to think about, but way to complex a theme for me to want to tackle, even in fanfic.
.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-01-11 05:05 am (UTC)She’d also have to be immortal. As I Asimov’s Hari Seldon rightly said, numbers and time are dependent variables. How long would it have taken Gutzon Borglum to carve Mount Rushmore all by himself? Hint: Lacking the army of workers he had, the Crazy Horse Monument is still woefully far from completion and may never reach it.
Just so, to alter society in so profound a way, you’d need either an Islamic whirlwind chainsaw or millennia of patient unceasing whittling with your personal pocketknife.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-01-11 05:10 am (UTC)Nah, I wasn't thinking immortal... just planting seeds of ideas that continue to spread after she's gone. Not likely to happen, but remotely possible, and just a fun idea to contemplate.
.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-01-12 07:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-01-12 05:57 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-01-12 07:10 pm (UTC)I haven't read Harry Harrison. *makes note*